Monday, November 3, 2008

Daylight Savings... Not for a weak stomach

I'm wondering if anyone with a dog has experienced the daylight savings time change and how it messes with their pet’s internal time clock. My dogs have sure had problems over the years. I've been blessed with 3 great dogs over the past 21 years. Everyone one of them didn't like the time change in relation to what TIME they got their meal. The first 2 handle the change gracefully almost taking the mistake in asking for their meal at the old 5pm instead of the new 5pm as an "Oh my bad sorry. I’ll have a meal any time you give it to me."

Not my current dog, Little Star. She is a black miniature poodle. They are known to be quite a bossy breed. Yeah she's bossy, but she's my baby. She’s also a chow hound extraordinaire. She's 6 now and every year it takes about 6 weeks to convince her she's not getting her meal until it says 5pm on the clock. She’s quite insistent that she’s hungry right now! She stares you down with her intense dark brown eyes. Almost willing you like a marionette she walks you towards the food bowls. Then you catch a glance at the clock and snap out of it realizing it’s not 5pm yet. If she had a thumb she would have snapped her fingers and said, “Drats.”

Last spring she was pretty hopping mad about the time change. Every 10 minutes until the clock read 5 pm she'd ask "Can I have my meal now? How about now? And now?!" So, mad and disappointed in fact that it made me really think... do I need to put her stomach on daylight savings time? I decided then that I would no longer torture the poor thing. When fall came I’d keep her stomach on HER schedule.

This past Sunday came and we had all “fallen back” with our clocks. Sunday 4 pm rolled around and right on time she came to tell me it was dinner time ... the old 5pm it being 4 pm now. My son who feeds her told her no. She whirled on me and shot daggers with her cocoa brown eyes. I realized that I hadn't told anyone else our bargain about Poodle dinner time. So, I informed the family that Little Star's stomach was not on Daylight saving time any longer and she will be fed at the same time every day regardless of what the clock says. She was already my friend for life, but now she's just beaming with a belly full of food.